| This blog has been created as a way to express my thoughts about my job with decreased risk of getting fired if anyone at work finds out I've written about them. I read a news story at yahoo.com about people who blog about their jobs getting fired even when they didn't disclose who they work for or the names of the workers they were blogging about. This blog will also discuss WV politics. |
| I read an online news story yesterday that stated the WV state legislature was contemplating a payroll tax to help bail out the Unemployement Program. Here's an idea: Why not stop giving unemployment benefits to workers who were fired for being bad employees. I have never understood why a bad worker who gets fired is rewarded with unemployment benefits. But then again, WV state government is rife with examples of bad performance being rewarded. WV Workers Compensation Commission is in such bad shape, they are planning to privatize it within 5 years, but workers for that agency were reclassified into higher pay grades. - once again, bad performance being rewarded. |
| Let me fill you in on a little place I call 'work'. I work for ACME Widget Company (ACMEWC)*, a government affiliated subsidiary of ACME Widget International (ACMEWI)*. In ACMEWC, there are two camps of employees- the SO employees and the Field employees. I am a field employee. I am on the front lines dealing with the customers. The SO employees are housed in a parabolic chamber some 40 miles away and have virtually no contact with customers, the court system and the hard copy of the real details of each account, commonly called 'the case or case file'. Even though the field workers have all the information and the customers on their side, the SO workers like to think they control things. They do not. But it is a constant battle to remind them of their place in the world of ACMEWC, made even more difficult by the management of the SO camp who also suffer from delusions of grandeur and think they have power. Field management does what it can, but the SO is a juggernaut of nonsense and lacks so much logic, a Vulcan's head would explode if forced to deal with them for more than five minutes. I think the logic void is a requirement for anyone receiving government funding. |
| Following the Governor's contention that a well dressed and polite office is all that is needed to solve the mountainous debt and unemployment rate here in WV, the State Auditor's Office has enacted a new dress code. Apparently, no one can wear button up shirts without jackets (the jacket of course will restrict movement and result in even more popped buttons on the well endowed) and no open toed shoes without hose. Many of April's shoes have straps between the toes, so I don't know now she would wear them if she had to comply with this dress code. Maybe there are hose gloves out there with individual toes sewn in. |
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By TOM MILLER - Special to The Herald-Dispatch CHARLESTON -- The state’s payroll included 45,430 employees on Dec. 31, 2004, according to the annual report from State Auditor Glen B. Gainer Jr. That’s an increase of 892 people from the previous year. At his budget hearing before a House Finance Committee, Gainer also said 76 percent of all state workers now are paid by direct deposit. One of the biggest events during the first full week of the 2005 regular legislative session was Gov. Joe Manchin’s ceremonial signing of the workers’ compensation reform bill enacted at the six-day January special session. He signed the bill Wednesday, surrounded by the same collection of business and labor leaders present when he announced his plans for the special session a month earlier. The Senate passed the so-called "Laci Peterson" bill in a single day by a 32-2 vote Feb. 15 and sent it on to the House where Judiciary Chairman Jon Amores, D-Kanawha, indicated it would be given more deliberate consideration. The bill that also passed the Legislature in 2004 only to be vetoed by then-Gov. Bob Wise would allow separate criminal charges for both the mother and fetus in violent crimes against pregnant women. The Senate also was working on a bill submitted by the Manchin administration to remove a gag order in a new ethics law also approved at the January special session. Manchin said he agrees the one provision inserted in the bill at the last minute that prohibits people who file complaints with the Ethics Commission from making public comments until a review board finds reason enough to accept the complaint. The corrective legislation was sidetracked temporarily on the Senate floor when Sen. Frank Deem, R-Wood, offered an amendment to prohibit free receptions for legislators. "This doesn’t prevent lobbying groups from having a receptions, only ones where there is no cost to the legislators," he said. "This same provision was approved in the Senate at the special session and then removed by the House of Delegates." But when the Senate finally considered the amendment Thursday, it was rejected by a 23-10 vote and then passed unanimously and sent to the House. The governor also announced that 80 percent of the 12,000 people who responded to a public opinion poll about the new design of the State Capitol dome favor a lead-gray background with gilded highlights instead of covering the entire dome in gold. On Friday, the Capitol Building Commission agreed, voting to go ahead with the public’s choice. At a budget hearing in the House Finance Committee, new Commissioner Troy Brody of the State Culture and History Division said he’s committed to completing a new multimedia design state museum in the Cultural Center even though the project is likely to cost more than $10 million. "This is the best museum design we can bring you," he told committee members. "Does it cost more? Yes. This is a ‘wow’ museum." He said he is looking at ways to find the $6 million of additional funding needed to complete the project. Following release of a report that the state’s prison population has doubled in the last decade, Chief Justice Joe Albright of the State Supreme Court told legislators in both houses that the increased costs of maintaining more than 5,000 inmates at taxpayer expense is greater than the entire budget of the state’s court system. Albright, a former House Speaker, suggested the Legislature consider changes in state laws relating to sentencing of persons convicted of nonviolent crimes as a way to deal with this problem. |